House for a Violinist | Klas Hyllen Architecture

“This is a contemporary insertion and a careful retrofit to a listed building. The new is generous in volume and remarkably different against the low ceilings of the older cottages – the new provides height and space for music to be performed and enjoyed without forgetting the historic setting from which it has emerged.” - Klas Hyllen

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This is a project that starts with music and takes form through the desire to create spaces of gathering and performance arranged vertically. House for a Violinist is a contemporary insertion and a careful renovation to a grade II listed building stretching across three weavers’ cottages as part of a cliff face terrace with stunning views across the Wiltshire landscape.

About a hundred years ago, one of the cottages burnt down, leaving a gap in the terrace. The adjacent two cottages were combined using the gap as a courtyard garden. The house was unsatisfactorily sub-divided with the main house at ground and first floor, and with a flat at the second floor – accessed from an uphill entrance. The brief from our client, a renowned violinist, was simple – he sought to bring the three cottages into a single home, whilst also having one space within which he could play the violin without worrying about hitting the low cottage ceiling with his bow. The result is an ashlar clad, relatively un-assuming new extension within the gap sitting comfortably in its historic setting, where the contemporary ‘drama’ is all happening behind the new façade.

The design was an exercise in defying gravity. The house has three dominant levels, with two additional half-levels. Each ‘cottage’ is just under 20m2 in footprint, so fitting a stair into this space, taking account of 5 levels and with historic walls anything but straight was the primary challenge. The design solves the vertical circulation by inserting a suspended raw steel staircase. The steel sheets being only 8mm minimises wasted space where tension wires suspend the corners of the stair and the new living room floor – a homage to the delicate strings of a violin. Without the suspended corner the stair would not have been able to structurally turn and connect the many half levels.

The stair rises over a new floor of polished concrete complete with underfloor heating and against the backdrop of the ‘burnt wall’ – built orthogonal to the front elevation and plumb to simplify construction and installation. The historic dividing walls can therefore be retained in their wonky state, with the stair rising next to, but not touching it. The stair arrives at the second floor into the music room which has been exposed to the apex of the roof – again using tension wires to hold the original roofing rafters together, creating a contemporary experience bespoke to a violinist.

New insertions are sleek using contemporary detailing whilst now internal historic walls have been left as masonry and simply painted. As one moves vertically up the building, the low ceiling heights of the original cottages are experienced against the new, generous volumes carved out by the extension. The new extension is remarkably different to the older cottages – the new provides height and space for music to be performed and enjoyed without forgetting the historic setting from which it has emerged.

The site provides a fascinating context where historically a significant number of ‘workers’ cottages were built into the steeply sloping south bank leading down to the river of this historic mill town. The cottages are known as ‘weaver’s cottages and often simply contained one room stacked upon another with access downhill at ground floor, and uphill at second floor due to the topography.

The unified ‘cliff-face’ of terraced houses is listed together under one listing and considered holistically. In the post war years, the houses were in a poor state of repair and were nearly all demolished. They were saved in large part through the formation of the local preservation trust. The terraces define the view from anywhere within the town, which is a now a designated conservation area. As such, gaining listed building consent required detailed discussions not only with the conservation officer, but also with the local preservation trust and the town council.

Whilst a private home, the context is such that the only access is by foot along narrow pathways to the south or north. The project is very visible, not just from further across the town due to its cliff-face position, but also up-close as part of a popular historic walking route. The design brief was one of conservation and contemporary intervention in stitching three dis-jointed old cottages back together through the re-introduction of a missing piece within this highly visible historic façade. The conservation officer insisted on traditional materials being used as part of a ‘reading’ of the historic terrace and it was agreed early to use local buff ashlar stone and a traditional slate roof to allow the extension to sit comfortably within the overall façade. The extension is set back behind the one part of the elevation that survived the fire, in part this is to allow clear legibility between old and new, but it also re-creates a roof terrace feature over part of a 70s extension that was removed as part of the proposals. As a result, the extension also reads as subservient in scale to the historic façade.

This set back allowed us to introduce some modest contemporary detailing to the exterior of the extension. The overall façade of the existing terrace is plain, being originally workers cottages, and this is something we emulated using minimal and sleek detailing. For example, the weathering course was recreated above a pair of new patio doors accessing the roof terrace. The pairs of windows follow the rhythm of windows to the main house, but they are ‘elongated’ to become tall slender doors and therefore create a modest contemporary twist. The central column is free standing and chamfered internally to create the illusion of a pair of doors, whereas in fact the pair open as a full width set of doors. When open the column becomes a beautiful stone object.

The design has attracted an overwhelmingly positive response from the local community; fiercely protective as they are of their historic town. In this way our design has given something back to the wider public, showcasing how one can approach and balance a contemporary alteration within a historically sensitive setting.

Credits
Architecture Firm: Klas Hyllén Architecture
Lead Architects: Klas Hyllén, Jason Cope

Photography: Hide Film - https://wattsdave.com/